The Back Story

I'm an Okie. I was born and raised in northwestern Oklahoma . The back drop was a little town with a population of less than two hundred people. A town surrounded on all four sides by wheat fields. A town with a co-op instead of a quick shop, a cafe instead of a bar, and three churches within the whopping quarter of a square mile that makes up the 'city limits'. At school, I was considered one of the city folks.

Now I live in Los Angeles county. Everyone who has ever heard where I come from and where I am now, asks the same question. "How in the world did that happen?" If you have a moment let's dawdle through the list of reasons people flock to Los Angeles, shall we? First, I am not an scrappy aspiring actor, writer, filmmaker who works a boring office job to make ends meet while I pour my sole into my art waiting desperately in the wings for someone to discover my talent.  I am not a beach bunny making the escape from a land locked prison with an insatiable longing to tangle with the sea one on one.  I also have nothing against places that experience weather, I think that scorched earth and snow are lovely in their time and even appreciate those things called seasons. I did not move because I lead a life style or have a career that requires a more liberal minded community for me to thrive. You may have noticed there that I did not in fact say that my life style or career are acceptable to those who consider them selves conservative, only that this is not the reason I moved. 

So what is it? What's left? Truth be told there is only one possible reason that a girl like me ends up in a place like this. It's about a boy, isn't it always about a boy. For the sake of familiarity, we'll call him Pookie. I think you're going to like him.

So here is the rest of the abbreviated back story. I graduated from high school and  ventured out to Oklahoma State where I spent an exciting year and a half before returning home. After my grandfather passed away, I moved into my grandmothers house with her in the closest city (population 50,000) to my home town. After a couple of years of living, working and playing in rather typical young adult fashion we decided that it was time that I get on with my life. I was 21 years old when I loaded up my bright red Dodge Colt and moved to Dallas. I was enrolled in school, looking for a job and living in a studio apartment. I didn't know a sole in Dallas it was the biggest adventure of my life. 

You may have guessed, this is where Pookie comes into the story. Pookie and I met in a toy store. OK I'll come clean, I just assume we met in the toy store. I don't really recall where or when, he was just part of the new people that came into my life when I took the job there. I guess that makes it obvious we aren't talking about any love at first sight nonsense. As a matter of fact, we where sort of friends by proxy in the beginning. I'm not sure when, but we started spending more and more time together, one night after an evening of carousing we fell asleep next to one another on the couch. I woke up snuggled up to him, and thought it was lovely so I decided to keep him. He moved in roughly six months later.

Pookie was born and raised in Los Angeles County. He went to a catholic school, was an ardent boy scout (turned eagle scout) and a promising artist. About the time I was moving back from Oklahoma State, his family was dragging him across the country to live in a suburb of Dallas, Texas. In Dallas Pookie became an apprentice tattoo artist, which is what he was doing when we met. He had graduated to tattoo artist by the time we where a couple. It was no secret that he was headed back to SoCal some day, maybe if I had thought about that when I woke up leaning against him on an uncomfortable old couch we would not be here. 

Never the less, here I am. An Okie in Los Angeles. I'm not the first, won't be the last. I don't love it. I don't hate it anymore either. I'm discovering that in some ways my surroundings are changing me. In other ways, these liberal fruit cakes make me more conservative than I ever could have dreamed of being. That's what this blog is about. I'm going to tell ya'll what happens when a Okie let's Los Angeles into her life. We all know that it may be just simple growing up that's happening. I might be changing like this in Tulsa, Dallas, New York wherever the wind might of plopped me down. It's part of the age old debate of nature vs. nurture, innate characteristics vs. environment. I'll let you be the judge.